Royal National Theatre

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The Royal National Theatre from Waterloo Bridge
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The Royal National Theatre from Waterloo Bridge

The Royal National Theatre is a theatre company which operates from a building of the same name on the South Bank in London, England immediately east of the southern end of Waterloo Bridge. The National Theatre's building was designed by architect Sir Denys Lasdun and opened in 1976. In the years from 1963, before the company's permanent home on the South Bank was completed, the National Theatre Company, as it was then usually termed, was based at the Old Vic theatre in Waterloo.

The honorific "Royal" was added to the name in 1988, after a campaign by Max Rayne, retiring chairman of the NT board, to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the company’s inauguration (and Rayne’s own departure from office). The change was opposed by the theatre’s director, Richard Eyre, who feared that productions would become too “worthy” as a result. The addition was quietly dropped (but never officially rescinded) when Rayne retired.[1] Most British theatre-goers still refer to both the company and venue as The National Theatre, frequently abbreviated to "The National".

The National Theatre presents a highly varied programme, including Shakespeare and other classics, new plays by leading contemporary playwrights, and revivals of classic musicals. Each auditorium in the theatre can run up to three shows in repertoire or repertory, thus further widening the number of plays which can be put on during any one season.

Contents

[edit] The building

The National Theatre building houses three separate auditoria:

  • The Olivier Theatre (named after the theatre's first artistic director, Sir Laurence Olivier), the largest space, is the main auditorium, and was modelled on the ancient Greek theatre at Epidaurus; it has an open stage and a fan-shaped audience seating area for about 1,160 people. The stage is made up of a rotating cylinder enclosed by an additional rotating ring. The cylinder also rises up and down out of the stage to allow for scenery changes.
  • The Cottesloe Theatre (named after Lord Cottesloe, chairman of the South Bank Theatre Board) is a small adaptable studio space holding up to 300 people, depending on the seating configuration.
Denys Lasdun's building for the National Theatre - an "urban landscape" of interlocking terraces responding to the site at King's Reach on the River Thames to exploit views of St Paul's Cathedral and Somerset House.
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Denys Lasdun's building for the National Theatre - an "urban landscape" of interlocking terraces responding to the site at King's Reach on the River Thames to exploit views of St Paul's Cathedral and Somerset House.

The riverside forecourt of the theatre is used for regular open air performances in the summer months. The terraces and foyers of the theatre complex have also been used for ad hoc experimental perforances.

The National Theatre's foyers are open to the public, with a large theatrical bookshop, restaurants, bars and exhibition spaces. Backstage tours run throughout the day, and there is usually live music in the foyer before performances.

The style of the National Theatre building, described by Mark Girouard as "an aesthetic of broken forms" at the time of opening, has often been cited as an obstacle preventing the general public from embracing the building. Even enthusiastic advocates of the Modern Movement such as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner have found the Béton brut concrete both inside and out overbearing. Most notoriously, Prince Charles described the building in 1988 as "a clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London without anyone objecting".

Despite this controversy, the theatre has been a Grade II* listed building since 1994. Although the theatre is often cited as an archetype of Brutalist architecture in England, since Lasdun's death the building has been re-evaluated as having closer links to the work of Le Corbusier, rather than contemporary monumental 1960s buildings such as those of Paul Rudolph. [2] The carefully refined balance between horizontal and vertical elements in Lasdun's building has been contrasted favourably with the lumpiness of neighbouring buildings such as the Hayward Gallery and Queen Elizabeth Hall. The theatre building is now in the unusual situation of having appeared simultaneously in the top ten "most popular" and "most hated" London buildings in opinion surveys. A recent lighting scheme illuminating the exterior of the building, in particular its fly towers, has proved very popular, and is one of several positive artistic responses to the building.

[edit] Artistic directors

[edit] Notable productions

[edit] 1963-1973

[edit] 1973-1988

[edit] 1988-1997

[edit] 1997-2002

[edit] 2003-

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Eyre, Richard (2003): National Service. Bloomsbury, London. ISBN 0747565899.
  2. ^ http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article35020.ece

[edit] Bibliography

  • Goodwin, Tim (1988), Britain's Royal National Theatre: The First 25 Years. Nick Hern Books, London. ISBN 1854590707.

[edit] External link

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